Confusion Reigned After Jet Vanished, Flight Probe Shows

A Malaysian Airline System Bhd. aircraft taxis on the tarmac at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang on March 11, 2014. Photographer: Charles Pertwee/Bloomberg

May 2 (Bloomberg) -- On the day Flight 370 vanished, air-traffic controllers and Malaysian Air struggled for hours to
understand what was happening even as the country’s military
watched the plane appear to reverse course.

The initial confusion was disclosed yesterday in Malaysian
government documents tracing the start of a mystery that began
in the early morning hours on March 8. Malaysian and Vietnamese
controllers traded phone calls and relayed a tip from the
airline that the jet may have gone to Cambodia, the papers show.

As that exchange unfolded, the Malaysian military detected
an unidentified radar target believed to have been the Boeing
Co. 777-200ER as it headed west across the country, veering off
its intended route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur.

“The aircraft was categorized as friendly by the radar
operator and therefore no further action was taken at the
time,” according to a statement from Acting Transport Minister
Hishammuddin Hussein, who was informed of the tracking about
nine hours after civilian officials lost contact.

The statement and documents, including a preliminary report
dated April 9 and recordings of radio calls, gave a glimpse of
the fragmentary information that filtered among controllers,
Malaysian Air and the government amid a dawning realization that
a plane carrying 239 people had gone missing.

The materials gave no new clues on why a radar beacon on
Flight 370 went dark shortly before controllers’ last radio call
with the jet. Also still unexplained was why Malaysia waited
seven days to reveal that it had spotted Flight 370’s turnabout.

Flying South

Investigators have concluded the plane flew south toward
Australia and crashed in the Indian Ocean after running out of
fuel. The hunt for wreckage is in its 56th day today, the
longest for a missing passenger jet in modern aviation history.
Weeks of patrols by planes, ships and a robot submarine have
found nothing.

Malaysia will intensify efforts for the missing plane and
the government has spoken to several companies on how they could
assist in the search, Hishammuddin said at a press conference
today. The search may go on for as long as 12 months depending
on weather conditions, Angus Houston, who heads Australia’s
Joint Agency Coordination Centre, said in Kuala Lumpur today.

Houston said he is confident the area being searched is
the right place and Bluefin-21, the submersible scanning the
ocean floor, will eventually find something.

No Emergency

There was no sign of an emergency or tension in the cockpit
in five recordings of radio contacts with controllers. The
calls, in the clipped cadence of air-traffic communication,
began with delivery of the flight plan while the 777 was on the
ground and ended with a final message at 1:19 a.m. local time.

After a controller instructed the crew to speak to
Vietnamese controllers on a different frequency, a pilot
responded: “Ah, good night, Malaysian three-seven-zero.”

Controllers lost radar contact with Flight 370 at 1:21 a.m.
Vietnamese controllers contacted their Malaysian counterparts 17
minutes later because the pilots hadn’t been in touch, according
to a log of early actions in the case.

At 1:57 a.m., the Vietnam controllers reported failing to
reach Flight 370 on “many” frequencies and with the help of
other nearby aircraft.

Cambodian Airspace?

Then Cambodia, a country that hugs Vietnam’s western
border, became part of the narrative. Shortly after 2 a.m.,
Malaysian Air told authorities that it “was able to exchange
signals with the flight,” and that the plane may have flown
into Cambodian airspace.

That idea was quashed about 90 minutes later, when
Malaysian Air told controllers that its estimate of the plane’s
location was “not reliable for aircraft positioning,”
according to the log. By 4:25 a.m., controllers had begun
querying authorities in Hong Kong, Beijing and Singapore.

All the while, Malaysian military radar tracked the plane,
which remained unidentified because its transponder beacon
wasn’t functioning, according to Hishammuddin’s statement.

At 5:20 a.m., about four hours after civilian authorities
lost contact, someone identified only as “Capt” spoke to
controllers. “He opined that based on known information, ‘MH370
never left Malaysian airspace,’” according to the log, which
didn’t give the source of that information or indicate whether
any action was taken.

Recording

Military authorities replayed a recording of the radar
track at 8:30 a.m., more than seven hours after the plane’s
disappearance, according to Hishammuddin’s statement.

That information was passed up through the ranks and
Hishammuddin was alerted at 10:30 a.m. He then informed
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, according to the
statement.

Two ships and a military aircraft were sent to waters off
the northwest coast of Malaysia to start searching. It wasn’t
until March 15 that Najib confirmed the plane’s course in a
press conference. While the motive behind Flight 370’s southerly
heading remains unknown, Najib has said the jet was deliberately
steered back toward Malaysia as it reached Vietnam’s airspace.

Malaysia has set up a team to probe the disappearance that
will consist of three groups with specific focus areas, not
including any criminal investigation.

Family Payments

In another sign that the Flight 370 mystery is entering a
new phase even as the hunt for information goes on, Malaysian
Airline System Bhd. said yesterday that it will make advance
payments to passengers’ next of kin.

The payouts won’t affect families’ rights to claim
compensation later, and will be calculated as part of the final
sum, according to an e-mailed statement from the carrier, which
didn’t say how much would be disbursed.

Assistance centers for relatives set up around the world
will close by May 7, and passengers are being advised to return
to their homes and await updates on the investigation instead of
staying in hotels, the airline said.

Beijing’s Metropark Lido Hotel has been a flashpoint for
confrontations. Chinese nationals accounted for about two-thirds
of those on Flight 370, and tempers have flared in and around
the regular briefings held at the hotel by Malaysian Air.

Staff Detained

Last week, frustrated relatives of passengers detained
airline staff members at the hotel for more than 10 hours as
they demanded a fuller accounting from Malaysia’s government. In
March, after Malaysia’s Najib declared that the jet had gone
down at sea, a man at the hotel hit and kicked journalists
before police restrained him.

Malaysia’s April 9 report on the disappearance, which
officials sent to the United Nations’ International Civil
Aviation Organization, includes a recommendation that the body
develop standards for real-time aircraft tracking.

“There have now been two occasions during the last five
years when large commercial air-transport aircraft have gone
missing and their last position was not accurately known,”
according to the report, referring to Air France Flight 447,
which was lost in the Atlantic Ocean in 2009.

“This uncertainty resulted in significant difficulty in
locating the aircraft in a timely manner,” the government’s
report said.

The recommendation didn’t say whether a real-time tracking
system should be designed so pilots can’t switch it off.
Aircraft designers and aviation regulators currently give pilots
the option of cutting power to electronic devices in case of a
fire or another emergency.

Boeing is supporting efforts to expand aircraft tracking,
the Chicago-based manufacturer said in a statement posted on its
website.